Gaming Guru

Playing the multi-hand games

Independent inventors and small companies have left their mark on video poker, usually by licensing their creations to larger companies — mainly IGT.

The multi-hand games that began with Triple Play Poker were devised by Ernie Moody at Action Gaming, then licensed to IGT. The same goes for IGT's Multi-Strike Poker, invented by Larry DeMar at his Leading Edge Design firm.

Timothy Nottke devises video poker games with a wrinkle, too. He hopes to get them licensed and available for wagering, whether they wind up in brick-and-mortar casinos or whether he can place them online in jurisdictions where wagering sites are legal.

One new game is Multi-Draw Poker, and you can find demonstration versions of single-hand play at http://realizegamingllc.com/demo/mdDDB2/ and a multi-hand version at http://realizegamingllc.com/demo/tripleMD_2/

As in many new games with a bonus wrinkle, Multi-Draw requires an extra bet to activate a feature. The extra bet is twice your base bet, so if you play maximum coins at single-hand Multi-Draw, you bet five coins on the base game and another 10 on the feature for 15-coin total bet. On a Triple Play version, you'd bet 15 on the base game and 30 more on the feature for 45.

The attraction is that after you choose which cards to hold, a Multi-Card symbol at on the draw can trigger extra cards, giving you two to five cards on the draw instead of one. Each card creates a separate hand, so you could have up to five hands when the Multi-card appears. It also could trigger a 2x to 5x multiplier on any winnings.

Let's walk through an example. On a single-hand version of 9/6 Double Double Bonus Poker, I was dealt 2-9-A-8-6 of mixed suits. I held the ace.

On the draw, the Multi-Card appeared in the position vacated by the discarded 8. It called for three draw cards and a 2x multiplier. The rest of the draw had an ace in the first position, Queen in the second, the held ace in the third and a king in the fifth.

The multicard in the fourth position brought three cards — a queen, a seven and a 10. Now I had three hands — A-Q-A-Q-K, A-Q-A-7-K, and A-Q-A-10-K.

One hand was a winner with two pairs, and the other two were winners with ace pairs. Because the Multi-Card brought a 2x multiplier, winnings were doubled on each of those hands.

If that sounds a little complex, don't worry. The first time you see a hand played, you'll pick it right up. If the Multi-Card gives you two cards, you could be paid on two hands, with three cards, you could draw three paying hands, and so on.

In the three-hand version you could get different Multi-Cardz on every hand. In a trial run, I was dealt 2-K-5-6-2 of mixed suits on a display that showed the draw would play out three times.

I held the 2s, and in the bottom hand I was dealt a Multi-Card for two cards in the first draw position along with a 3x multiplier, on the second hand got a Multi-Card for three cards in the first position and a 2x multiplier, and on the top hand got the Multi-Card in the second draw position instead, this one for three cards and a 3x multiplier.

That meant I had two hands on the bottom line, three in the middle and three more on the top for a total of eight hands. Four of them were winners — all two pairs, normally a five-credit win for a five-credit bet. But with the multipliers, they brought 55 credits for my 30-credit wager.

I found the game fun to play, but then I love twists on multi-hand games. See for yourself at the links above.

Look for John Grochowski on Facebook (http://tinyurl.com/7lzdt44) and Twitter (@GrochowskiJ).

This article is provided by the Frank Scoblete Network. Melissa A. Kaplan is the network's managing editor. If you would like to use this article on your website, please contact Casino City Press, the exclusive web syndication outlet for the Frank Scoblete Network. To contact Frank, please e-mail him at fscobe@optonline.net.

John Grochowski is the best-selling author of The Craps Answer Book, The Slot Machine Answer Book and The Video Poker Answer Book. His weekly column is syndicated to newspapers and Web sites, and he contributes to many of the major magazines and newspapers in the gaming field, including Midwest Gaming and Travel, Slot Manager, Casino Journal, Strictly Slots and Casino Player.

Listen to John Grochowski's "Casino Answer Man" tips Tuesday through Friday at 5:18 p.m. on WLS-AM (890) in Chicago. Look for John Grochowski on Facebook and Twitter @GrochowskiJ.

Books by John Grochowski:

John Grochowski is the best-selling author of The Craps Answer Book, The Slot Machine Answer Book and The Video Poker Answer Book. His weekly column is syndicated to newspapers and Web sites, and he contributes to many of the major magazines and newspapers in the gaming field, including Midwest Gaming and Travel, Slot Manager, Casino Journal, Strictly Slots and Casino Player.

Listen to John Grochowski's "Casino Answer Man" tips Tuesday through Friday at 5:18 p.m. on WLS-AM (890) in Chicago. Look for John Grochowski on Facebook and Twitter @GrochowskiJ.

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